Hello!, uhm so my names MexBeeTv, I am a I guess scambaiter, I have a youtube channel with some subscribers where I try to mimick the style of a known scambaiter known as “JayBeeTV” Recently, he left to a new channel called “Good Enough” and I decided to take it upon myself to recreate his style of editing, and youtube videos, now its hard yes, but I needed some help as to what I can do
Basically, I used to use textnow to dial all the scammers and troll them a bit, and a couple months ago I was banned for violating their policies (aka trolling scammers) I feel like it was unfair and unjust, but thats not up to me. Textnow, was the tool that helped me start my career as a scambaiter and aspiring content creator, and after being IP Banned, I wasn’t able to use their services, now Im wondering what the hell can I do? I don’t even know if this is the right place to ask for help but, to be honest I need some sort of suggestions I’ve researched on my own but I can’t really find services close to Textnow I mean I can but its just they don’t work for me or just absolutely trash, and due to being IP Banned, I can’t upload video’s at all, I was wondering what can I do? what other services can I use? I can’t use google voice because I have no idea how that works or trust it with handling my private number. Thanks!
The programs that you are asking about are kept private because they can also be used for bad intentions, and have been. I am not accusing you of bad intentions in any way, I am only helping you understand the reluctance of people to give a reply.
You can buy a burner number for 4.99 a month from an app called Burner on Google Play or you can buy a TracPhone and use that. Sometimes you just have to pay for what you want. If you are making monetized content or plan to it would be an investment. Beware that you can also be banned from those for misuse. There is always Google Voice but you have to careful there to as you can lose your entire Google account for misuse. @CatMan
Totally understand, I too have my doubts sometimes, all I want to do is keep my channel alive since I think its been around almost 4 or 5 months since I’ve uploaded, and I appreciate you not accusing me of having bad intentions, I have my secrets as well, and I like that you are honest with me, I just wanna keep the channel alive since my editing style has been so accurate with a lot of these JayBeeTv styled videos, and I come with the best intentions, I wanna contribute to helping stop scams, troll the scammers, and if anything the least thing I wanna do is anything bad with any info given, not sure how I can gain trust here but I wanna let everyone know I come with the best intentions of helping not messing up stuff, obviously. Yk, I understand the mistrust sometimes and that is totally justified and acceptable, but all i want is to keep going with the channel and annoy these scammers 1 by 1, thank you for being honest with me and being straight up. Thanks!
Thank you, at the moment I don’t have monetized content due to the fact my channel is tremendously small, I can’t set up a patreon due to the fact im still young, I’ve tried many apps during these 4 months since being banned by Textnow due to the fact I called scammers and wasted their time, Google Voice for some odd reason I don’t wanna really use my private number or any family members numbers so that I can’t use to verify blah blah, but I appreciate everyones and your reply’s you guys are really honest and helpful, and in reality thats all I really want, I want the cold hard honest truth whether that be harsh or gentle doesn’t really matter to me. Thanks!
There is Talkatone and Text Free but you will run into the same problems. They keep track of your calls and all of them are tied to your phone number. Even Textnow is tied to your phone number. You cannot get any of those accounts without your private number being attached. If you want private you will have to buy a Tracphone but even then when you buy your minutes you will have to use personal identifying information. There really is no way around it.
I think I’ve actually used TextFree, and I’ve ran into problems, the fact that when I ring up numbers they just keep ringing for hours and hours and hours etc etc, I don’t really know how to fix that and kinda gave up, all I want is the best quality for my content and to keep annoying and stopping these scammers, Talkatone, I’ve been trying to set it up on bluestacks right as of this moment, but its on a constant loop when i click on the verify if im a robot thing, the constant circle spinning and won’t go away, not really sure what to do at this point.
I recently posted something similar on another forum (don’t know if I am allowed to share the link so I don’t and just post an extract from it), maybe there’s something helpful for you.
Someone mentioned above that there are other tools out there and they are not posted on purpose to avoid teaching the scammers. I don’t think I touched any of them (this is mainly a summary of posts I found and tools I tried), but if I do the mods can delete my post.
Upfront: None of the easy accessible free-options worked for me (I’m not in the US, that made it even harder) so I switched to the paid-options (I collected the costs so get a feeling for it).
Here’s the summary:
To dip a toe in the scambaiting water I tried to start with free phone services from various posts but I also looked into some paid versions (Remark: Most of issues I experienced are because I’m not in the US)
Free phones
textnow (the most referred tool by scambaiters)
It’s close to impossible to create a working textnow account from outside the US. You CAN trick the Microsoft Store (with a VPN + setting your “Region” in Windows to US) BUT in order to create an account you need to download the app on your phone and you need a google account that is set to the US (same with google voice below). I also read that you need a US telecom provider like AT&T, … but I can’t confirm that.
Google Voice
The problem with using google voice from outside the US is not solved in just switching your VPN location. The bigger problem is that the google account itself is set to a different country. You CAN switch your location in the google account (only once per year a hidden in the depths of the settings) BUT as this might affect other apps that I’m using on my phone I did not risk going down that road, besides that: I do not trust google a single bit and as we are forced to use google with IRL information for other services you might loose your account fast.
Skype
The free part of Skype is pretty easy to gain some experience in scambaiting, after registering you can directly call toll-free US numbers (800/888/877…) for free (just make sure to NOT link your private number to Skype).
The downside of the free approach is that you can’t call non-toll-free numbers an don’t have a number displayed (so scammers might not pick up and they can’t call you back, which is a tactic sometimes with the toll-free numbers).
talkatone
Does not have a desktop version and I don’t want to get my IRL mobile involved.
I tried to install it on my phone anyway for testing and I was able to install it from the playstore, but it looks like you can’t sign up for new accounts anymore.
There more free phone services mentioned in different posts but most of them triggered my security programs so I did not test them any further (Globofone, freetring, poptox, citrustel, …).
In the end having your own scambaiting number(s) is the goal, so I looked at commercial alternatives:
Paid phones
Skype
You can rent a US number from outside the US, which costs around $7/month.
You can either buy Skype credits and pay per minute or use a subscription plan for around $3/month (just to get a feeling for the costs).
Being a newbie I choose this way to start scambaiting (I don’t need several numbers in this stage)
I guess there are alternatives to Skype but I haven’t tried them yet.
Another way is to get a Softphone and a VoIP/SIP provider.
Softphone (free, I found 3 mentioned a couple of times)
ZoiPer free = 2 numbers / paid ($65) = unlimited numbers?
Without having a VoIP/SIP provider I can’t really say much about them.
VoIP/SIP providers (this is the paid part)
voip.ms
price indication: calls $0.01/min, per phone number $0.85/month
Drivers licence or passport needed (scanned)
Zadarma
price indication: calls $0.012/min, per phone number $2…4/month
Passport needed (scanned)
For the registration they need a working phone number for OTP + email (funny: they didn’t accept proton or Hotmail but 10minutemail worked )
Telnyx
price indication: calls $0.002/min, per phone number $1/month
Passport needed (via onfido)
I do understand the verification by scanning a document but this is a no-go for me in this stage:
I don’t know these companies
A scanned document might end up in someone else’s hands and (surprise) I might be scammed
I assume if I stop sh**ing my pants this is a good way to go…
You might rethink if you need several numbers working in parallel in the stage you are in (for me it’s enough to have 1 at the moment, if they block it I just move on).
BTW:
What I learned from the public scambaiting forums is that it’s a thin line between “exchanging ideas with fellow scambaiters / raising awareness of scams” and “teaching scammers” (as they are on here as well).
You mentioned an IP ban: I hope you are not scambaiting without a VPN.
That really surprises me. I’ve been using text now for quite a long time and I’ve made thousands of calls to scammers. Seems like a weird thing for Text Now to ban you.
A completely different route, setup your own VOIP & remove the middleman :
Install Asterisk or FreePBX on a cloud service like Digital Ocean, AWS, or Linode.
Create an account with a trunk service like Flowroute
It’ll require some technical skills, but nothing you couldn’t learn from following tutorials or YouTube “how to” videos. It’ll be a monthly cost - depending on volume of usage, but nothing unreasonable. If you’re serious about running a YouTube channel, I would recommend not being bound by a single point of failure like TextNow. If you’re number is blocked by the scammers, this is easily bypassed with your own VOIP setup. If you’re trunk drops you, simply subscribe to another, or create a new account with new contact information. It’s a night & day difference. Best of luck with whatever you choose.
Hello. As someone who enjoys watching scambaiting content, including JayBeeTV’s content, I really appreciate your dedication to reviving his style when Jay seemingly abandoned his channel. I’m honestly a huge fan of the idea!
If you have a mobile device with Android or iOS, you might want to try getting a free TextMe number. The only major downside for me is that, as far as I know, you can’t use it on the web (like you can with TextNow). However, I’ve never been banned with TextMe before, unlike with other free VOIP number providing platforms.
Good luck with your new channel! Have a great rest of your day!
Oh yeah, they banned my IP from textnow, I was still pretty new to scambaiting at the time but I still knew some stuff, Textnow IP banned me, and probably will never unban me, I’ll look at some of the things you said, I js replied super late because I’ve been focused on other careers, obviously, I don’t have as much time as I used to before, but thank you for your suggestion.
Honestly, it could have been because of how relentless I was, I was ruthless with these guys, days, weeks, just constantly tryin to shut them down, at one point I think I had a 8 hour call with a scammer, and jeez was that so painful to continue , anyways just be carefull how you use textnow lol.
I’ve heard of this VOIP services, honestly, I’ve been a computer kid almost my entire life, but even this is just something I didn’t dabble in just due to the fact that it seemed really freakin difficult and just not worth my time at that time, and I think it still isn’t due to school related stuff, but, if I ever get the time I will def work on tryin this stuff out. Thanks!
Haha yeah, Its difficult to recreate his style of videos, if he comes back he’ll put me in retirement (which I hope too much editing for me even as a 15 year old, doesn’t mean I’ll stop scambaiting) Im not sure why the heck I got logged out my account here, but now im back and Im gonna be replyin to all the new comments I see here in my post, thanks for the good luck wish!.
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, anyways just be carefull how you use textnow lol.